Artistic License
by you'vegotthis
Summary: Synopsis: A little licentious literary negotiation. One shot.


Artistic License

Synopsis: A little licentious literary negotiation.

She had a throw pillow with the British flag on it, and it was the one he chose to put to its intended use.

"Hey, do you want another cup?"

"Castle!"

He'd thrown it at her from the other end of the sofa where he perched awaiting her opinion of his latest chapter. Normally he didn't show her anything he was working on, but he'd been inspired by their romp last weekend, and he wanted her permission to use it. Not that he would ever expose what they had to the world. He'd taken appropriate literary license, but he was happy to re-live the moment with her. Too bad her total absorption in her reading material was leaving him out in the cold. He'd already asked her twice from the kitchen if she wanted a second cup of coffee, although now he could see the first cup was growing cold.

He knew she was tenacious, but this was ridiculous. Even at the precinct she didn't completely ignore him.

So he threw her Union Jack pillow at her. If only he'd known.

* * *

She flipped the last page over and sighed. Well he was certainly inspired.

So was she.

She sent the pillow back in his direction, her police target training benefitting her, bull's eye, straight to the chest.

He caught it with both hands and an "oof,"before flopping stomach-down perpendicular to where she was propped on the lounge end of her sofa.

"What did you think?" He's looking up at her expectantly.

She curls a hand over his ear and gives him a little scratch across his scalp, fingers in his hair. He is definitely her favorite pet.

"Castle, if you put this in your next book, I will not be able to look Lanie in the eye."

"Nah Kate, she'll love it. You are a lucky woman. Revel in my manly prowess."

She leans forward ostensively to kiss him, instead producing the throw pillow she's been leaning on to bop him on the head.

"Ow, Kate." And then he's reaching his fingers out to grab her ribs and she involuntarily spasms toward him, squawking out his name. He knows she's reaching for his ear and he ducks and dodges her efforts while pulling her involuntarily closer, his hands spanning her waist. Her joyful laugh is a fantastic reward for all his immature behavior. He loves hearing her like this. There is absolutely no reason to grow up.

"Castle," she breathes out when she finally catches her breath, "Castle stop." She tries to peel his hands off her.

"Not unless you tell me what you really thought about what I wrote."

"No."

"No? What do you mean 'no'?" He's moved a hand from her waist to her forehead to smooth back her hair.

"Not gonna give you permission to put our sex life on paper."

"Not our sex life Kate, our love life."

"Um hm, you are just going to have to use that imagination of yours to come up with a new story."

"Come on Kate, I can't help it if all my dreams come true. I dream it up, it happens, I stop writing it down and I'll stop being a novelist. Then where will we be?"

"I'll still have my job."

"Oh my god, I'd love to be your kept man, Kate Beckett."

"Well I'd say, 'in your dreams,' but we both know where that would lead. No Castle, you want a muse, it's supposed to be for inspiration, not so you can turn me into a way to inflate your . . ." she gives him a knowing look, "ego. Go write your own story."

"You are my muse, how about you do some stuff to inspire my _ego_."

"Seems to me like you were more original before we got together."

"So what are you saying?"

She leans in to peck him on the lips, before rolling in the opposite direction to get off the couch, before she does, she grabs for the Union Jack again, "I'm saying, I miss the chase."

The pillow hits him in the face as she heads for the bedroom, he recovers quickly enough to catch the look she throws over her shoulder.

* * *

Turned on, Castle is remarkably faster. It would be surprising if she didn't realize she always reaches a suspect before he does, she chases the perp, while he chases her. No wonder once she stopped chasing her mother's murderer, Castle caught up to her.

Now, she doesn't mind tying for the prize. Its loads more fun playing with him than against him.

She's already gotten the pillow off his side of the bed by the time he enters her bedroom, but she's barely turned around by the time he's walked in the door, and although she clobbers him with it, she's slightly off kilter in her swing. It makes it easier for him to wretch it out of her grasp. He swings back and misses as she moves for the foot of the bed, around to her side. She needs her own weapon.

He lunges across the bed to stop her intent, but he's too slow, she steps back, raising the pillow over her head to smack him across the head in his defenseless position lying across her bed.

"Kate!"

She swings back to do it again when he springs his torso off the bed and onto her lower half. She gets him again across the back but not before he has his arms wrapped around her hips. His cheek on her stomach.

It's the perfect angle for her to expend her energy thwacking his rear with her pillow.

Until he finds the seam between her jeans and her rucked up t-shirt and licks her stomach.

"Castle," she gasps, as though he has just unplugged her battery, she stops mid-toss, lowering her pillow involuntarily.

He does it again.

"Cheater," he hears her whisper.

He pulls her on to the bed, rolls to face her, lacing his fingers through hers, he pushes her hands into the mattress on either side of her head, straddles her hips with his knees. He leans in to kiss her, but when she strains upward to kiss him, he pulls back, just out of reach.

"You inspired, Kate?"

"What?" her brow wrinkles.

"Cause you seem inspired."

She smirks at him before flipping them, reversing their position so his hands are now pinned.

"Oh Kate, you are totally going to have to teach me to do that. I mean, not the domestic violence part, the flipping part."

"Come on Castle, you know there was nothing domestic about that," she leans in to kiss him, but he turns his head at the last moment, refusing.

"And now you are trying to assault me," he says looking away.

"Didn't hear you use your safe word, you want to use it now Rick?" She kisses his jaw, works her way up to his ear.

"Bananas."

"Pears." He squeaks.

He manages to pull his hands out from under hers, pulls her by the back of the neck to his lips and keeps her there. Massaging, caressing, adoring her. Yeah, she's inspirational like this.

"Forget my safe word around you Kate," he says nuzzling her nose with his.

"Good, don't want safe," she shakes her head at him, and then she squeezes her thighs against him,  
"I want dangerous."

His hands rove to her rear, "I can do dangerous, but I want some artistic license."

"You want to write what we are going to do? You want me to promise before we do? What if it's not good?"

"Um, hello? Have you been in the same bed I have? Oh, or come to think of it, the same pool? Storage closet? Parking garage? You and I? We only know amazing, besides, I've been holding back." Oh he's smug.

She smiles wide at him. The smile they both know she reserves only for him and then she bows her back, pressing her stomach into his, her eyes looking away, considering. He can't help giving her a little squeeze.

"Ten percent," she says.

"Ninety," he counters immediately.

He can see her bite the inside of her cheek.

"I'm afraid that if I use my full muse powers; I absolutely can't go higher than twenty."

"Want to shake on it," he grins at her.

"You are saying that in your next love scene with Rook and Nikki, you won't use more than twenty percent of this . . . inspiration, the other eighty percent comes from your own head?"

"Watch the dirty talk, but yes, that's what I'm saying."

"What do I get out of this?"

"Free coffee?"

She pinches him on his side.

"Writer's credit?"

"Oh, so you can tell people which part I wrote? No, you can keep the credit, play boy."  
"You want to talk about me being a kept man again?"

"What do you think you are now?"

He smacks her rear.

"Hey!"

He kisses his repentance down her neck, rolling her over so she's beneath him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her fingers in his hair. Who's she kidding? She'd give him whatever he wants, just wants him to work for it a little. But he is a master negotiator; he proves it in his next words.

"Twenty percent and I promise to love, honor and obey you."

She pulls back and stares at him in disbelief.

"I might only obey twenty percent of the time, though."

* * *

Later, he writes two versions of their night, one of them violates their agreement, but only she will know it.


End file.
